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Peter Berg Casts Taylor Kitsch in Navy SEAL Film 'Lone Survivor'

Taylor Kitsch is a star on the rise in Hollywood, and director Peter Berg has had a lot to do with it. The X-Men Origins: Wolverine star broke out on the popular drama Friday Night Lights, which Berg worked on as Executive Producer, and he's currently set to make the leap to action star in Berg's tentpole sci-fi film, Battleship. Given their good working relationship, it's no surprise to see that Kitsch and Berg are hooking up once again.

Following the recent killing of Osama bin Laden by a Navy SEAL team, Hollywood executives are anxious to greenlight military projects - specifically those involving special ops teams. Now, Universal is pushing one by Peter Berg called Lone Survivor.

According to Deadline, the film is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Marcus Luttrell. Berg wrote the script for the film several years ago while he was embedded with a SEAL team in Iraq, but couldn't get support for it without agreeing to direct Battleship first. Now that the killing of Osama bin Laden has re-sparked interest in military films, Universal is interested in fast-tracking the project.

Here's Deadline's description of the film, which would feature Kitsch as one part of a four-person SEAL team:

"The film tells the harrowing story of how he and his Navy SEAL team members fought to stay alive after being ambushed in Afghanistan in 2005 by Taliban forces during a covert mission in the Hindu Kush mountain region, where the team went to kill a terrorist leader."

The description of the plot sounds similar to another fact-based war movie, Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down. Indeed, Berg compares the movie to Black Hawk Down, but with an even smaller group of characters. In the Deadline article, Berg talks about the bin Laden factor and how he plans for the film to be "unapologetically patriotic."

"They [Universal] leaned right into it with me. Bin Laden's death has cleared the way for this, a movie that will be an unapologetically patriotic film that honors and pays homage to an incredible group of badass guys who do this. The film will be a bit like Black Hawk Down, but it will focus on the quartet, which is fewer guys than that film."

Berg's Lone Survivor, which will begin filming in January of 2012, isn't the only SEAL movie headed to theaters. Kathryn Bigelow's film about the operation to track and kill Osama bin Laden has also been fast-tracked for development. Bigelow's previous "War on Terror" film, The Hurt Locker, won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and launched actor Jeremy Renner onto the Hollywood A-list.

All things considered, which would you rather see: Berg's film or Bigelow's film?